


We're always weather-beaten

by emily_420



Category: Gintama
Genre: Gen, sibling adventures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-26 19:04:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3861193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emily_420/pseuds/emily_420
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Things I want to forget, things I don't want to forget<br/>Thank you, thank you, I hate you so much, beautiful memories"</p><p>Once, long ago, Kamui had no issues being a brother. An interlude of innocence in a harsh childhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We're always weather-beaten

**Author's Note:**

> mentions of food & violence
> 
> you can't convince me that kagura & kamui were unhappy for their whole childhoods tbh
> 
> [recommended listening](http://agendermura.tumblr.com/post/116120287625/koharu-biyori) - the lines in the summary are from this
> 
> somewhat inspired by [lance’s art](http://1lyjii.tumblr.com/post/116982697833) and also [that one cover page](http://bato.to/read/_/280159/gintama_v57_ch515_by_hi-wa-mata-noboru/6)

It was raining, and they hid from it in a deserted building, scratching on the bare concrete with a stubby bit of pink chalk scavenged off the ground, a rare, miraculous find that they'd make the most of. Kagura was doodling a rabbit, her lips pouted in concentration, and Kamui watched with growing impatience over her shoulder. “Give me that,” he said as she started to colour its ears, sticking his hand out.

“I'm not done,” Kagura said, looking wide-eyed up at him, and Kamui almost wanted to let her carry on. Almost.

“You'll waste it if you just draw pictures,” he told her, shaking his hand for emphasis. “Gimme, I'll show you something funner.”

Taking the chalk confidently, Kamui pressed it against the ground, and dragged it along in a wide arc, walking backwards, bent over as he concentrated. Kagura stood off to the side, watching him curiously, and after a minute piped up, “Nii-chan, what are you doing?”

Kamui paused and smiled up at her as if he were sharing a secret. “Life-sized game board,” he said, and Kagura grinned excitedly back at him in the dim light, eyes as bright as the sky she longed for. Kamui kept going, a small smile dancing at the corners of his lips as he swept the chalk across the cold, vaguely damp concrete, carving out a sanctuary from the oppressive barrenness, the endless beating of raindrops on caving rusted roofs. He drew a long, curving twisted snake of a thing, marked spaces into it and listened to Kagura's suggestions about what should happen if they landed each of them.

“Ah, but wait, Nii-chan,” Kagura said as Kamui filled in the last space painstakingly, “we don't have dice...”

“Ah.” He hadn't thought of that. “Well we could...” Kamui trailed off, struggling, and Kagura gave an inspired gasp.

“I know!” she said, “How about, I put up a number of fingers behind my back and you have to guess what it is!”

“How does that help?”

“The difference between your guess and my number is how far you move!”

“Oh.” That'd work... “You could change it though?”

Kagura pouted at him. “ _I_ wouldn't! And _you_ shouldn't, but if you can't stop yourself from cheating then I guess we'll have to think of something else!”

Mildly offended, even though he probably would cheat depending on the situation, Kamui took in his sister's upturned button nose, her puffed out cheeks and he caved. “Okay, so I won't cheat,” he said. Kagura peered sideways at him.

“You have to promise,” she said, holding out a short, chubby pinky finger.

Kamui curled his own pinky around hers, a small, fleeting touch of warmth in the cloying damp. “I promise, okay?”

Kagura flitted a smile at him, and for the next while they were alone together in a world that only children can build for themselves. Kagura, a queen, a warrior, an elderly priest; Kamui, himself, at first, and then a knight, a captain, a rogue. They hopped from square to square, hands flying behind their backs and back again. They forgot, the two of them together, the broken home awaiting them when they eventually emerged from their own dimension, the broken home and the broken mother and the broken father, conspicuous by his absence. Kamui forgot about the lectures he was sure to get from Housen the coming morning; Kagura forgot how hard it had been for her to make friends since they'd been forced to drop out of school since they could no longer afford it. They forgot and pretended and jumped from square to square the way they wished they could jump over all the painful things that filled their days.

When the game was over, the spell broken, they sat backs against a wall, side by side, listening idly to the pitter-patter of the rain on the street, building tops, windows, the smell and chill of it filling every bit of air pressing against soft skin, filling their lungs over and over. “We could play again,” Kagura offered hopefully.

“No,” Kamui said, staring at a bit of graffiti on the opposite wall, “we should probably go home. It's getting late.” The _Mami will be starting to worry_ went unsaid, silently understood.

“Can we go the secret way?”

The secret way wasn't actually secret. It was longer, went around through back streets and empty buildings, but in calling it secret Kamui had made it theirs, their own special route, a fun way of taking Kagura away from the main streets where the grown-ups gathered and flashed their muscles and picked fights with each other. She was too young, Mami said, to see what the Yato were really like; Kamui thought that she wasn't, but agreed that if she got into trouble it wouldn't end well, so he did as he was asked, kept her safe as he could, fed her exciting lies. He smiled down at her. “Sure,” he said, “and we can get meat buns from the old man as a surprise for Mami on the way.”

Kagura didn't have her umbrella, had left it at home as she was prone to, but it wasn't raining that hard that night, a weak drizzle that was more of a nuisance than an inconvenience. They shared Kamui's umbrella, mostly, but Kagura kept running ahead, jumping in puddles and spinning happily.

“You'll catch a cold,” Kamui called to her, knowing that she rarely did, no matter how much she exposed herself to the elements.

“The meat buns will warm me up!” she called, stopping mid-skip to spin and grin at him.

“No umbrella again,” the old man smiled down at Kagura, shaking his head. “You'll get sick like your mother that way, young lady.”

“I will not!” She puffed out her cheeks, and Kamui silently dropped a hand on her head, dropped the money on the counter.

“We're going home anyway,” Kamui told the old man, smiling insincerely, and the old man just shook his head again, counted out the money and chucked it into the till, fetched a bag of dumplings for them.

They headed out again, more subdued, and, hiding under Kamui's lone umbrella, Kagura pestered her brother for a dumpling; Kamui insisted that they had to wait 'till they got home, so they could share them all with Mami, and she got a bit upset with him, but that was okay. Kamui spotted the dark outline of a largely disused parking lot, one that was full of old, unwanted cars, growing rusty as they sat forgotten. Kamui grinned in the low light.

“Okay, chief,” he said, voice hushed, to Kagura; she looked curiously up at him. “For this next operation you're the Commanding Officer in charge of Meat Bun Protection. Can you manage it?”

Kagura smiled brightly before forcing her face into assuming a serious expression. Saluting, she nodded sharply, said, “Yes, sir.”

Making their way through the car park, they were unnecessarily stealthy, hiding behind cars and checking that the way was clear before moving again, on the run from fake enemies. The rain was barely there, which was rare, so Kamui folded his umbrella, pretended to shoot out an enemy soldier who was in the way. Kagura giggled, pressing the bag close to her chest, following close behind him, nameless agents in a hushed rush home, back to base. Coming out of the parking lot, Kamui snapped his umbrella open, water flicking off it onto both of them; Kagura flinched, giggled, and he laughed with her, said, half-sternly, “Clear,” and they laughed even harder.

The rest of the way home, they did not feel danger creeping around the edges of everything, as they often did in their city; it was dinner time, most people were inside, and their good mood along with the promise of a relatively warm home and a very warm embrace was insulating them. Rounding the last corner, Kamui burst out, “Race you home!” and took off, his stubby legs, still weak, carrying him as if borne on the cold wind, and Kagura made a loud unhappy noise, chased after him, told him he was being unfair, but he didn't listen. He was focused on the warm home and the warmer embrace and the warmest smile, a soft oasis in the harsh city of street violence and strict training, and Kagura's calls were drowned out by the sound of his feet beating down on the ground and the wind in his ears.

 


End file.
